U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups,  has released a new report that looks at the existing insurance exchanges that have been set up in other states and rates them based on how accountable they will be to the public, how much they can do to lower costs and improve quality, how user-friendly they will be, and how stable.  Exchanges were given a score based on these criteria.

Who scored high on their list? Looks like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington were the only ones that scored A’s.

Undoubtedly, the idea is that New York’s exchange will be structured to best meet the needs of New Yorkers.  But, one advantage of the snails pace that our state has taken on this issue is that we can learn from the experiences of other states.

Check out the U.S. PIRG report if you get a chance – it gives a nice brief summary of each state’s bill and how it was scored.  It’s food for thought, anyways, particularly with New York’s exchange still MIA and the possibility that our exchange bill may be up for a re-design in the coming months.

Click here to read the new U.S. PIRG reportl, titled “Making the Grade: A Scorecard for State Health Insurance Exchanges”